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We Happy Few Game preview

Game preview 01 August 2016, 14:35

author: Przemyslaw Zamecki

We Happy Few hands-on - it’s not the next BioShock

We Happy Few was one of the biggest surprises of this year’s E3 with its Bioshock-y esthetics and a dystopian vision of Great Britain of the 60s. This game, however, holds much more secrets.

This article was written prior to the game's release.

This text was based on the PC version.

WE HAPPY FEW IN A NUTSHELL:
  1. Survival game with a touch of adventure;
  2. Takes place in an alternative version of Great Britain,ruled by Germans who had won the war;
  3. Procedurally generated world;
  4. Combat and stealth elements;
  5. Emphasis on the protagonist’s need for food and sleep.

We Happy Few became one of this year’s E3 sensations, drawing our attention away from much bigger games presented during Sony and Microsoft’s conferences. The production intrigued the audience mainly with its stylistics and the extraordinary introduction to the story of Arthur Hastings – a censor whose job is to review press articles. After one of these articles awakes in him personal memories, he decides not to take the pill evoking feelings of joy an d contentment, thus starting to perceive reality as it really is... The scene ended with him being chased by policemen called in by his colleagues.

This is not a new BioShock

This short fragment impressed those gathered at E3, and many people hoped that WHF may follow in the footsteps of games like Bioshock, where the players navigated the dystopian reality of the underwater city of Rapture. The alternative history of our world, where the greatest armed conflict ever seen by human race ended with the victory of Nazis, leading to the German occupation of Great Britain could be a fantastic, if not outstandingly original, idea for the background of a captivating plot and a single player campaign. This isn’t the case here, however, as We Happy Few is first and foremost a survival game, and adventure comes second.

The key decision of the game: to take the pill or not to take the pill – that is the question. - 2016-08-01
The key decision of the game: to take the pill or not to take the pill – that is the question.

The production from Compulsion Games has been available on Xbox One and in Steam’s Early Access for a couple of days now, offering a taste of the game’s content. We’ve gotten the most important element – the campaign mode. At the beginning we can also choose the permadeath feature or enable our protagonist to continue the game after his death. This information is especially vital since the city of Wellington Wells, where the game takes place, is generated procedurally, so with each playthrough it’s going to be different.

This poses a question of whether the developers managed to prepare enough activities as to keep the players interested during each playthrough. Personally, I think there’s a good chance that it won’t be the case: true, the locations will always be different, but the quests required for completing the game – not necessarily. As a result, the whole game may boil down to ransacking locations in search of crafting items.

The TV is constantly spewing propaganda. - 2016-08-01
The TV is constantly spewing propaganda.

Survival at its best

The game begins in the sewers, where Hastings’ base of operations is located. There’s a storage, where extra items can be held, and a bed to sleep in after a trip to the surface; a place to rest can be found there as well. Still, if you can find a house with beds, it probably means it is inhabited, and people don’t like strangers poking around their homes. It’s noteworthy that the developers haven’t disregarded the NPCs. Each of them has a name, and at least a couple of words to say, and they are all very sensitive about thievery and violence. Which is kind of irritating, considering that, for the sake of survival, Arthur has to examine every box and cupboard.

Those of the players who prefer peaceful coexistence with virtual neighbors can resort to stealth (you can even hide underneath beds); the rest has to brace for frequent clashes. Arthur fights with his fists, sticks, cricket bats – anything that can efficiently damage human beings. The combat mechanics are pretty simple – you can only attack and block – but they don’t feel as if they were lacking anything. Also important is the fact that the adversary doesn’t always have to be killed – they sometimes give up when the alternative is being mangled to death.

The visuals are pretty good, at least in the vicinity of the player. In the distance it gets worse: objects are visibly simplified, and occasional pop-ups appear. - 2016-08-01
The visuals are pretty good, at least in the vicinity of the player. In the distance it gets worse: objects are visibly simplified, and occasional pop-ups appear.

Compulsion Games is a small company, located in an old gramophone factory in Montreal. Consisting of 20 people, the studio released Contrast in 2013. This game showed us that the team likes to blend different genres and use original settings.

Exploration is the key, but there’s always a purpose to it. We Happy Few does tell a story, and it’s not short on side quests, but crafting and survival are paramount. So there we are, snooping around in search of duct tape, metal slabs, all kinds of rugs and other stuff that can help us to create items helpful in settling future arguments (a crowbar, for example), but also items that are required for completing quests. Now I’m not the biggest fan of such solutions, but the devs from Compulsion apparently are, since they decided to make things a bit more difficult. If a real survival game is defined not only by the fact that it makes you gather tons of items, but also by its focus on basic physical needs, then We Happy Few is a survival game of the purest kind. Arthur has to eat, drink, and sleep. He can get poisoned with spoiled food or bleed out. A sleepless Arthur is a weak Arthur. A thirsty or hungry Arthur is a dead Arthur. Same as poisoned or bled out Arthur, as you might guess. In order not to bleed out, you need to carry bandages and some alcohol with you.

This means “bobby” doesn’t want to let us in. - 2016-08-01
This means “bobby” doesn’t want to let us in.

In search for the truth

All the necessary items can be made in the crafting tab. Food has to be found. Water can only be poured into a few canteens from hydrants that are located in many spots around the city. In the beginning, it’s pretty difficult to find space for all that stuff in the backpack, but it can be upgraded. On top of that, the game also contains some RPG elements. The protagonist is described by a couple of statistics that can be developed with books throughout the game. Then, there are the clothes, which provide different bonuses (for example for stealth), or are necessary for completing tasks such as extracting honey from beehives.

Looks a bit like fighting zombies, but that’s just the lowest social class. - 2016-08-01
Looks a bit like fighting zombies, but that’s just the lowest social class.

We Happy Few reaches for a tried formula of presenting an alternative reality in which history took a different turn. In case of movies, it’s worth to see Vaterland where Rutger Hauer finds himself in a situation pretty similar to that of Arthur from WHF, and gradually discovers the scale of Nazi atrocities after Germany won WW2. A famous American sci-fi writer, Philip K. Dick, wrote a book held in similar convention, called The Man from the High Castle; last year it was made into a TV series. Other works worth checking out are Island and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

In We Happy Few, every main quest requires investing some additional time into finding items needed to complete a specified task. It’s a bit like RPG fetch quests with the addition of “search” aspect, which may not be in line with the expectations of those players who are more into an exciting adventure. Don’t get me wrong, adventure does exist in this game; even side quests here are pretty diverse and they have a couple of memorable moments, but will it suffice to capture players’ attention throughout the whole campaign...? The collectible notes providing information about the lore are a nice touch, but I don’t like the fact that you have to peep into every trash bin to find them.

It’s pretty amazing what you can find here... - 2016-08-01
It’s pretty amazing what you can find here...

It’s worth the wait

All the time spent with We Happy Few made me feel quite ambivalent towards the game. On the one hand, we may witness the birth of a new survival sub-genre – focusing not only on surviving, but also on a very coherent and interesting plot. On the other hand, how many more interesting survivals can there be? We can already pick and choose from dozens of such titles; how many of them were destined to become smash hits, but turned out utter garbage? These are the questions that the developers should bear in mind – I, for once, advise the players to refrain from buying the game before 1.0 version is published. Until then, let’s keep our fingers crossed and our eyes fixed on the progress the game makes. Who knows, maybe in a couple of months We Happy Few will become a sensation once again, only this time it will not be due to the trailer.

Speaking of distant objects: that’s how bad it gets. - 2016-08-01
Speaking of distant objects: that’s how bad it gets.
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